To Found A School
by Queen of Zan
Summary: working title The Sorting Hat tells a simple story every year: how Hogwarts was founded, and how people are Sorted. But the whole story isn't told; who has time for that? So here is the real story, including paranoia, idiocy, romance, and dragons. Not


I wrote this mostly on a whim, late at night, but I do have a challenge for this. Somewhere.

Disclaimer: Yadda yadda don't own yadda yadda not mine yadda yadda JKR yadda yadda Monkeys yadda Justin.

::Prolouge: Enter the Four::

A woman yawned. It was late at night, and she was poring over a piece of parchment. There were what appeared to be incantations from Latin words on it, with what it did (or so it can be assumed) next to it. She had just finished writing _Alohomora—Opens locked doors_.

The woman set down her quill (a rather nice blue peacock feather) and pushed her stool away from the roughly hewn wooden table. She stoodup and smoothed her loose blue robes. She yawned once more and strode across the room to her bed.

The wooden frame looked to be oak, and rather well worn, but sturdy on the stone floor. The mattress itself appeared to be stuffed with straw, but the quilt laying on top of it looked to be stuffed with some sort of feathers.

The woman kicked off her leather boots and crawled under the feather quilt without even taking off her robes. Before she closed her eyes, she waved a wand, extinguishing the lamps and candles. Her last glimpse before it went completely dark was of her small, lonely, one-room cottage on the outskirts of the village, exactly as it should have been.

"Exactly as it should have been" means that it was neat, organized, and clean. The bed was in one corner, the table large, seemingly crude and in the center of the room. There were two stools on either side of the table, and on one side was a bunch of neatly stacked parchment, a quill, two inkwells, and the parchment she'd been working on. On the other side of the table was a plate, a knife, a fork, and a container labeled "Salt".

On the wall opposite the bed was a large fireplace, with various potted jars on the mantle. The door was in the corner diagonal from the bed. On the only otherwise empty wall was a large cauldron.

Neatly organized shelves and cabinets dotted the walls of this neat little house. On one of those shelves, extra plates and silverware were stored.

As the dark-haired woman fell asleep, one of the parchments on the table drifted onto the evenly packed dirt floor, landing on a thickly woven brown rug. In the dying light of the dying embers of the fireplace, one could just see the name "Rowena Ravenclaw" written in neat, long handwriting.

A red-haired man stared blearily at the owl that was perched on the chair by the wall. It had just flown down the chimney and was now gazing impatiently at him. The man continued to stare at the bird. He scratched at his beard. The owl began to look irritated.

Suddenly, the man began to realize that he should take the letter the owl had clamped in its beak. He got up and hastily took it. The owl flapped off, up the chimney, and left.

The man yawned and blinked, tired, at the room of the inn he was staying.

He yawned once more and looked at the letter. It was still in its thick parchment envelope, seeing as he hadn't opened it yet. He gazed at the address, his head leaning sideways as it so often did when he was half-asleep.

The address read "Godric Gryffindor, Pink Dragon Inn, Village of Lately Hollow". Godric had always found the village's name rather odd.

He opened the envelope and read the letter. "Oh," he muttered. "Hmm," he hummed as he threw the letter down on the only small table in the room before collapsing on the Inn's bed. He knew there were insects, but he'd deal with the Innkeeper—tomorrow. Right now, he had to sleep.

A slim man shook kis dark hair out of his face. He rubbed at his rather silly-looking beard as he waited for the owl he'd sent off a few hours prior to return.

Now, his beard looked silly, or so I said. Well, it did, because the hair was so fine and thin it tended to lay flat on his face. The fact that his hair was a very dark brown and he was tanned didn't help either. He had no moustache either, so on the whole, he looked rather ridiculous with it. One could tell just by looking at him that his friends often teased about it, but he just wouldn't get rid of it. One could tell because it was still there.

The man yawned. He was staying up late again, burning massive quantities of wax as his supposedly "ever-lasting" candles slowly melted, leaving shiny pools of wax in their flimsy saucer-like copper holders. Perhaps not the smartest thing he'd ever bought, but he'd gotten back at those merchants.

The reason he was staying up late, wasting his "ever-lasting" candles, was because he waiting for the owl he'd sent that Gryffindor fellow he'd heard about from his sister's "friend", Mella Malfoy. Those Malfoys, he thought, such nice people. Funny, too. Rather odd though. Half of them never reproduced, preferring to eke out a living with their "friends". But that was okay, as long as it didn't hurt anybody. Though it was rather disconcerting that Mella would rather gaze at his sister than him.

The manjumped as the owl he'd sent to Gryffindor rustled through the window. Before he realized it was the owl, he'd drawn his wand and declared loudly to it, "_I'm warning yo—_oh."

He was just a little paranoid. Actually, extremely paranoid.

Granted, it was a justified paranoia, for it was a dangerous time, and everyone was wary of magic. The dragons roaming around the countryside didn't exactly help, either. Come to that, neither did the manticores and chimaeras.

After the man realized it was the owl, he went over to it and asked it quietly, "Did you deliver the letter?"

The owl didn't stop to consider how ridiculous the man sounded addressing it, but instead just hooted in reply and flew out the window to go hunting in the nearest forest.

The man yawned again. He was tired.

He performed all his customary protective charms and spells before collapsing onto his bed.

The man looked around his room. Since when had there been so much green? he asked himself. He glanced at his bed coverings. A green quilt and a silver wolf fur. Where had _that_ come from? Sometimes I confuse me, he thought.

Outside his house, a tree branch rattled. He started. Then he shook his head. Using his wand he put out all the candles and lanterns in his room, including the "ever-lasting" ones. He put down the puny-looking strip of wood that proves that appearances are deceiving on a table next to his bed and closed his eyes.

In an effort to calm himself down, the man told himself, "I am Salazar Slytherin. I am not afraid of anything."

He snuggled down under the covers, and jumped as a cat meowed.

A tall blond woman was sprawled across her bed, mouth slightly open. Her long hair covered her goose-feather pillow, fell in her face, and was randomly scattered across the golden quilt she had made not long before. She slept on her side, her generous curves hidden by the slightly lumpy blankets.

Helga Hufflepuff was already asleep. She hated staying up late.

::End Prolouge::

I heart me. I hope you do too. Please tell me what, if anything, I screwed up. There is undoubtedly something.


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